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29 August 2009

Familysearch.org is adding new databases almost daily; I try to remember to go and look for new info regularly. Currently, the site is still at pilot.familysearch.org , but that URL will probably be changing in the near future as the "New" FamilySearch rolls out.Last night, while just playing around, I saw new data for the Wisconsin State Censuses and ran the surname 'Causier' just for fun. Sure enough, there was great-great-grandfather C. CAUSIER in June 1885 in the village of Bay View, Milwaukee County!

The household is 2 males and 2 females, all born Great Britain. That data lines up perfectly with my expectations for Charles, wife Catherine (HUGHES), son Charles, and daughter Martha. This new info is especially nice to have since Charles & Catherine supposedly immigrated in 1881 but I had found no record of them in the USA until 1889 and 1890 at 188 Williams St., Milwaukee in a Milwaukee Wisconsin Directory (ancestry.com). Now I can look for them specifically in Bay View.

An adjacent 1885 Wisconsin census entry is for the family of E. Field. That data lines up perfectly with expectations for son-in-law Enoch Field, his wife Manwella (Causier), and their 3 oldest children Enoch, Ada, and Charles. This new info is nice to have since it fits so well with a ship manifest showing them arriving May 11 in New York on the ship 'Germanic' from Liverpool (NY passenger list available at ancestry.com). Note that in the 1900 and 1910 US censuses, Manwella is said to have immigrated in 1884, but in the 1930 US census, she supposedly immigrated in 1888. So, even given that census entries and memories may be faulty, we must at least consider that there may have been both earlier and later trips to the USA than the 1885 trip for the Fields.

What a great find! The only problem that every "great find" seems to lead to more questions...!

12 August 2009

Perhaps I should admit now that even with all my college degrees, I got through school with only one real history course. With the help of PBS, my interest in history did increase over the years but that's not saying much. But as my interest in genealogy increased and my research progressed, I saw how lacking my knowledge was and how interesting specific topics in history could be.

For instance, I soon found that all of my CAUSIER and CARR lines have a connection to Yorkshire but my research was hampered by my complete lack of knowledge of Yorkshire's geography or history. These great books are helping me catch up:

A History of Yorkshire: 'County of the Broad Acres' by David Hey (Lancaster, England: Carnegie Publishing, 2005). It's 472 pages with at least one illustration on almost every page. It is so lovely just to look at that sometimes I just sit and go through reading the picture captions. In 10 chapters, content goes from "prehistory" to present day. Careful attention is made to show how the sub-regions are each unique across that time span.

My Ancestors were Methodists by William Leary (London: Society of Genealogists, 1999). This is a small, 115 page pamphlet. Most of it is a listing of existing Methodist records across England, but the first 20 pages are an excellent overview of all the different types of Methodists. This topic became very important to me when I realized that I was having trouble finding records on the children of John Henry CARR and Ann Matilda CAUSIER because I was looking in Church of England records while the family was Primitive Methodist! Clearly, I need to learn more about Methodist records and history, but this is a start.

11 August 2009

It seems fairly well "proven" that Carl Benjamin Hegwer and his wife, Maria Rosina Ilgner were part of the "Old Lutheran" migration and came from Kunitz, Liegnitz, Silesia (an area of what was then Prussia, but is now in Poland). Prior to the discovery discussed here, I had seen nothing that took either line back before 1839.

I have talked with several German language/genealogy “experts” locally and they have all agreed that ILGNER/ ILGNAR/JLGNER/JLGNAR/JIGNER spellings would have been basically equivalent, especially in that timeframe. For simplicity, I will use ILGNER here unless quoting directly from a source.

Maria Rosina ILGNER’s surname seemed well established in several sources [i.e., 1,2, 3, 4]. There are some genealogies that give her surname as “Traugott,” but I have found no records to that effect. I suspect they were assuming that a surname had been used as her eldest son’s given name. There are some genealogies that use “Schletz,” but they appear to have merged her name with that of one of her sons-in-law.

ILGNER early immigration to WisconsinOne of the first things I did when I found the publications of Pommerscher Verein Freistadt was to look and see if there were others who settled in the Freistadt area who had also come from the Liegnitz area. My hope was that perhaps I could have better luck tracing others than I was having with Carl Benjamin and Maria. There were very few others from Silesia, but one stood out since it also was an Ilgner!Benjamin SCHOEN/SCHöN and his wife (Anna) Rosina JLGNER immigrated to Wisconsin in 1841 from Pfaffendorf, Liegnitz, Silesia. [4, 5, 6] They settled in Grafton, which is near Mequon. The given names of their children are very similar to those of the HEGWER/ILGNER offspring. At that point in my research it appeared reasonable that the two Ilgner women were related but I had no real links.HEGWER and especially SCHOEN appear often in publications about the church these early immigrants established in Mequon. The Ozaukee County website has information about early church history. See their fine website for a photo of the historical marker.HEGWER and JLGNER on same passenger listWhile doing some census work on some of Carl Benjamin and Maria's children and grandchildren, one of those ancestry.com (usually bothersome) "did you know" links about a Hegwer on a passenger list popped up. Usually such links take me to some well known Hegwer census info, but since this was a passenger list, I went ahead and looked at it right then. Much to my surprise, it was for a passenger list of the “Flying Dutchman”, arriving in New York on 28 July 1853 from Hamburg [please see Note 10 below], and showed C. JLGNER, 74, going from Prussia to Wisconsin and traveling with T. HEGWER, 19, going from Wisconsin to Wisconsin. Also, A. JLGNER, 27 was traveling with them from Prussia, as was A. ROWE (?spelling?), 30. The three going to Wisconsin are listed as being in husbandry. [7] I was very excited by now having another document that linked Hegwer's with Ilgner's!

The age and initial of “T Hegwer” is consistent with that of Carl Traugott Hegwer, the eldest son of Carl Bejamin Hegwer and Maria Rosina Ilgner. It was common for families in America to send an older son to Europe to accompany later immigrating family members to America. At this point, I was pretty sure that C. Jlgner, whoever he was, was related to Maria and I became even more vigilant for ILGNER surnames.

ILGNER probateIn the meantime, the rental price of microfilms from the Salt Lake City FHL had jumped and I had become much more selective about what I ordered. Also, I started making more of a point of seeing just what microfilms were already available at the nearby Regional Family History Center. On a trip to that center, I checked the following film only because it said Ozaukee County and it was already there so I would not have to pay to order it! I was surprised to find that FHL # 1309213 did indeed have an index listing for Carl ILGNER, 77, died 1856, probate packet A84 [footnote 8 below]. The age was consistent with that of the immigrant on the Flying Dutchman who was traveling with T. Hegwer. Ozaukee County is consistent with the HEGWERs at that time. The year and packet number led me to ordering the film which would have that packet. I eagerly waited the month it took for it to come....

FHL# 1320207’s probate packet number A84 is for the probate of Carl Frederick ILGNER and it is a genealogical goldmine [footnote 9 below] for HEGWERs! The “packet,” as filmed, is about 93 images of various handwritten documents including a will, witness statements, receipts, and a brief inventory. The images are clear and most are fairly easy to read. There appears to have been a bit of a dispute between the executor (J. Andrew SCHLETZ, the husband of Carl and Maria's daughter Christina Mary) and at least one of the other legatees, thus explaining the unusual number of witness statements and the detail.

CONCLUSIONSThere is no doubt that Carl Frederick Ilgner was the father of both Maria Rosina (Ilgner) Hegwer and Anna Rosina (Ilgner) Schoen. The probate documents list his grandchildren and most of the spouses at that time. It includes a comment that Traugott was his favorite since Traugott had gone to Germany to bring him to the USA, thus validating my assumptions about the Flying Dutchman passenger list. A timeline for Carl Frederick Ilgner’s movements for the short time he was in Wisconsin can be extracted.

It was very exciting to find such valuable info and to be able to share it! (This blog entry is modified from entries I posted at rootsweb and genealogy.com.) I've been working on finding descendants of Benjamin Schoen and Anna Rosina Ilgner, dreaming that they will have the entire Ilgner pedigree already worked out! I am also trying to track August Ilgner (A. Jlgner of the passenger list), who was listed in Carl Frederick's probate but without a relationship given.

9. Wisconsin, Ozaukee County, Probate Files A50- A72, A77-A86. FHL# 1320207. (Note: packets are not in a strict numerical order; keep going, A84 is near the end.)10. (this note added 4 Jul 2013) Whoops! Today I was playing around and went back to look at the image of the NY Passenger List at ancestry. Previously, I had relied on the indexing for the transcription of the origin for Traugott, which said "Staadt West Indies." No! It clearly says Staadt Wisconsin, which makes much more sense and is specifying that he was a resident of Wisconsin.

This is my second attempt at my first blog creation. I'm hoping that it will be an easy way for me to share my research (and especially my research process) with family and others who are interested in our lines.

When I started my genealogy research, I had my 4 grandparent's surnames, some good notes on one of them, and very little else. Now, about 10 years later, I have hundreds of surnames to research in the USA and Europe. Perhaps the biggest improvement is that I no longer feel alone in my quest. I have 'genealogy cousins' in several states and in England, in fact so many now that I am seriously behind in communicating with several of them....

My Hegwer's arrived in the USA in 1839 (or possibly 1840), settling in Wisconsin and moving to Kansas in 1857. The Richardson's were in Kentucky in the 1700's and migrated to Missouri.

My Carr's and Causier's arrived in the USA in the 1880's, coincidentally also first settling in Wisconsin. Bertha Maud Carr met Benjamin Theodore Hegwer in Nevada in about 1910.

My Porter's and Davison's, and all their lines appear to have come to America from England during the Great Migration. The earliest were clustered in Massachusetts and Connecticut, arriving in Vermont by about 1800 and on to California about 1910.

My Keating's and Dooley's are evidently Irish immigrants circa 1850 to Ohio. While I broke through a major brick wall with them this year, they are still my biggest problem and skimpiest gedcom.

I plan to use this blog to share research "finds" more than family trees per se. But given that this is all a grand experiment, we'll just have to wait to see how it ends up! Have a GREAT day!